1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an NC data preparation device advantageously adapted for automatic preparation of NC (numerical control) data, particularly such data that represents a machining area or cutter location (CL), i.e., a tool path, for a numerically controlled machine tool.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a result of the recent, rapid advancement of NC (numerically controlled) machine tools, almost all the machine tools are arranged to be numerically controlled in these days. In addition to that, production processes are arranged to be carried out by a system computerized from a designing process to a manufacturing process. The whole machining is numerically controlled. The level of production technology thus has been enhanced to give a higher degree of precision and a higher speed.
However, it has been hardly possible, with the conventional NC machine tools, to avoid the interference of the parts of a tool other than its cutting edge, such as a shank part, to automatically obtain a machining area where no flash is likely to be generated and to automatically prepare CL data for cutter location within the machining area or data for parts left uncut.
Therefore, in order to avoid the interference of the tool including its parts other than the cutting edge, such as its shank part, etc., to prepare a machining area where no flash is likely to be generated and to prepare the CL data for the machining area, the operator of the machine tool is required to give instructions, in an interactive manner, with respect to an interfering area or a tool path which does not generate any flash. However, preparation of high quality CL data has necessitated a considerable number of processes and a high grade of skill. A great amount of labor has been also necessary in accurately finding where and how any part is left uncut.